This invention relates to limited-compressibility support structures having elastically deformable elements.
German Patent No. 36 09 095 discloses a support structure of limited compressibility for use in a vehicle seat pad. That structure provides a spacer which assures that, even when a load is placed on the seat pad by a seated person, a space traversed by airflow is maintained in the pad. That structure comprises elements of an essentially plane truss referred to as compression distributors and not directly connected to each other. Each compression distributor includes compression members set perpendicular to the plane of the truss and abutting at their free ends by slightly convex elastically deformable parts, referred to as spacers, at their free ends. In top view, these convex deformable parts are more or less star-shaped, so that each indirectly connects several compression distributors. Near the vertices of their convexities, these parts connect in turn with similarly shaped elastically deformable elements constituting a second layer.